The Director of the academic committee of the Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Science, Prof Zhao Wei, came to UIC and gave a lecture titled 'Future of computing' on 29 April.
UIC President Prof Tang Tao warmly welcomed Professor Zhao Wei's arrival and presented him with UIC souvenirs.
Prof Zhao (left) President Tang (right)
Vice President (Research and Development) and Dean of Graduate School, Prof Jia Weijia, presided over the lecture
In the lecture, Prof Zhao shared the future development of the computing field with teachers and students. He explained how computing problems could be classified as "easy" and "hard". Easy ones are those in which the computation can be done very fast by using the current computers. The majority of computing applications today are in this category. In the future, humans must focus on complex problems which the current computers cannot solve efficiently. One approach uses non-semiconductor-based physical devices; initial work in quantum computers would fall within this category. Another method is to develop heuristic algorithms with much lower complexity; this is very much an objective of "Artificial Intelligence" development. The third approach is to leverage properties inherently located within input data, hence improving the computation efficiency. With this preamble, we argue that because data are de facto representations of natural phenomena, they naturally should have their own inherent rules. There is a call for creating and developing "data science," the objective of discovering such regulations in today's age of enlightenment.
Prof Zhao giving a speech
Members of the audience showing interest and asking questions
Prof Zhao with UIC faculty and staff
Prof Zhao graduated from the physics department of Shaanxi Normal University with a bachelor's degree and received a master's degree and a doctorate in computer science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. From 2008 to 2018, Prof Zhao served as the eighth president of the University of Macau. He successively served as Vice President of the American University of Sharjah, Dean of School of Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the United States, Director for the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the US National Science Foundation, and Senior Associate Vice President for Research at Texas A&M University.
Prof Zhao has also taught at Shaanxi Normal University, Amherst College, University of Adelaide and Texas A&M University. He is currently the director of the academic committee of Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Science. In recognition of his outstanding achievements in science and education, the Chinese Association for Science and Technology, USA, awarded him the Lifelong Achievement Award. In 2007, he was honoured with the Overseas Achievement Award by the Chinese Computer Federation. Professor Zhao has been conferred honourable doctorates by twelve universities in the world and academician of the China Science Center of International Eurasian Academy of Sciences (IEAS CHINA).
From MPRO
Editors: Samuel Burgess, Covee Wang
